When Peter DeBoer saw one of his former junior hockey pupils flatten Anaheim’s Corey Perry Wednesday night — a feat most players don’t have the guts or stones to attempt — it proved to be an indication that maybe, just maybe, Nazem Kadri was reviving his roller coaster career.

Less than a year ago, Kadri’s future in with the Maple Leafs was as cloudy as that of his free falling team, the saga of a kid whose decision-making on and off the ice nowhere near equalled the natural talent he’d been blessed with. The low point came in March when he was suspended for three games by the team for a lack of professional conduct, with president Brendan Shanahan calling for Kadri to “grow up.”

Has Kadri finally heeded those words?

DeBoer certainly thinks so. In his opinion, Kadri finally appears to have picked himself up off the basement floor and started to identify the potential that DeBoer had identified years ago when Kadri was playing for him with the Ontario Hockey League’s Kitchener Rangers.

“I don’t think he’s the first or the last kid to go through those growing pains,” DeBoer said Friday from San Jose, where his Sharks will host the Leafs on Saturday at the SAP Center. “There are examples all over the league of young players struggling to find their way while trying to learn what it means to become a good pro.

“Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom in order to climb back up. I think he’s gone through all of that.”

Rather than boot Kadri out of town over the summer in Phil Kessel-like fashion, incoming coach Mike Babcock and general manager Lou Lamoriello felt the young centre could still be salvaged. Instead of verbally carving him like former Leaf coach Ron WIlson and ex-Marlies bench boss Dallas Eakins (who pretty much once suggested Kadri was fat), Babcock has played the encouragement card with Kadri, a tact that now seems to be paying dividends.

When Kadri scored just once in the Leafs first 19 games, Babcock was supportive, claiming the skilled forward was contributing to the team in other vital areas such as in the defensive end and in the faceoff circle. With his coach continuously preaching that the points would come, Kadri has seen Babcock’s prediction come to fruition, accruing 13 points in his past 13 games.

But, as the Ducks and Kings have found out firsthand during the first two legs of the Leafs three-game west coast trip, Kadri’s impact cuts far deeper than just the gaggle of numbers you find on a scoresheet.

A day after crushing Perry, one of the toughest hombres in the NHL, Kadri was the No. 1 target of the Kings in a 2-1 Los Angeles victory Thursday, barely avoiding a beheading attempt by Drew Doughty early in the game before being levelled by Milan Lucic later in the first period. He actually could have knotted the score at 2-2 late in the game, too, had Kings goalie Jonathan Quick not robbed him.

It’s this trait of raw competitiveness that reminds DeBoer of Doug Gilmour.

Three years ago, when DeBoer made that same comparison in an interview with the Toronto Sun, some fans took it to mean that Kadri was en route to be the “next” Gilmour. That’s not the message DeBoer was trying to send.

“When I made that (analogy), I don’t mean they are the same type of player,” DeBoer said on Friday. “But, again, when I think of Doug Gilmour, I think of a guy who has that itchy compete in a world class-skill body. And I always believed Naz has had those characteristics.

“When I say that, I can probably count on my fingers and toes the number of guys in the league who have that combination of things. It’s rare. That’s why I think he has the potential to be such a valuable guy.”

And, to use DeBoer’s own description of Kadri, a “fearless” one.

“When I had him in his rookie year in Kitchener, he was a 15/16-year-old, 145 pounds. And he would do anything to win a puck battle or to help win games,” DeBoer said. “He would take on guys and ended up in a few scraps in his first year there where you’d close your eyes and cringe because the guy he’d be fighting probably outweighed him by at least 40 pounds.

“But he was fearless. He has a fearlessness to him. And that’s a rare trait for a guy who has the skill he has.”

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